Comments on: Et tu, Heritage?http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2011/03/et-tu-heritage/
The Tenther GrapevineTue, 16 Sep 2014 02:47:58 +0000hourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.6.1By: Buckminister Foleyhttp://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2011/03/et-tu-heritage/#comment-4346
Thu, 10 Mar 2011 14:27:40 +0000http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/?p=6977#comment-4346I wouldn't be about throwing Heritage under the bus for one of their associates fumbling the ball. I will give the Foundation the oppurtunity to clarify their composite position before I would write them off. They have, after all, been serving the conservative cause much longer than anyone of us. And observing that some of the people in here are from academia, I would trust them to have a hidden agenda before I would condemn Heritage.
]]>By: Marc de Piolenchttp://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2011/03/et-tu-heritage/#comment-4345
Thu, 10 Mar 2011 04:33:30 +0000http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/?p=6977#comment-4345A disappointment akin to that which I felt when Scientific American joined the Anthropogenic Global Warming cheering section and labeled all nonbelievers deluded. There will be many such disappointments in the months ahead, but what is really happening, for the most part, is not reliably allies turning their coats but organizations and individuals revealing their true colors. Rejoice, fellow lovers of liberty, for we will soon know whom we CAN trust!
]]>By: Jim Delaneyhttp://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2011/03/et-tu-heritage/#comment-4344
Thu, 10 Mar 2011 01:03:44 +0000http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/?p=6977#comment-4344Can't begin to tell you how profoundly disappointed–and completely taken aback–I am by Heritage's terrible misunderstanding of the meaning and scope of nullification. Rewriting history is something Heritage should leave to the far left. What part of the 10th Amendment DON'T they understand or, more precisely, are phiilosophically indisposed to understand. I'm speechless. I honestly never saw this coming. Shocking!

Keep up the fight, Tom. I had no idea our struggle would be with Heritage as well as the Progressives and Statists. Wow! We really are in trouble.

]]>By: Philosopherkinghttp://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2011/03/et-tu-heritage/#comment-4343
Wed, 09 Mar 2011 16:43:34 +0000http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/?p=6977#comment-4343The article briefly mentioned something about the rule of law but what most people don't understand is that the law is not really meant to contain people's behavior. It does but it really acts as a container for when the force of government can be used. Its not so much meant to subjugate the people since government can do that anyways but meant to define what conditions will trigger the use of government force against an individual.

The author thinks it is probably noble to be obedient to the government and be a law biding citizen which is probably why he does not support nullification. This is just my guess.

"Many of the options states are pursuing seem to fall within Madison’s categories of legitimate state action. The Health Care Freedom Acts passed by eight states last year and being considered in several others this year are a perfect example. Virginia used its HCFA as the basis for their so far successful legal challenge to Obamacare (Commonwealth of Virginia v. Kathleen Sebelius). A different approach can be seen in the Firearm Freedom Acts passed in 8 states (proposed in 22 more) cleverly designed to challenge expansive federal claims of regulatory authority under the Commerce Clause. South Carolina is doing the same with the Incandescent Light Bulb Freedom Act. These acts are aggressive state actions that challenge federal laws—but they are not nullification. Nor is it nullification when states refuse to participate in federal programs and mandates, such as the REAL ID Act."

The only thing I can gather is that he thinks it takes more than refusal to comply with a federal statute to constitute nullification. Perhaps he thinks nullification occurs only when one state voids a federal statute for itself and for the other 49 states as well. If so, rather than make him an idiot, just offer some nice advice to help him understand.

]]>By: Jeff Matthewshttp://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2011/03/et-tu-heritage/#comment-4341
Wed, 09 Mar 2011 03:39:11 +0000http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/?p=6977#comment-4341So, how did anyone conclude that Madison was referring only to official action to merely sway public opinion? I did not get that from the link in the Heritage article to what Madison wrote in 1800. The Heritage article attempts to quote Madison's 1800 Report by saying, "By interposition, as he explained in his Report of 1800, Madison meant 'expressions of opinion, unaccompanied with any other effect than what they may produce on opinion, by exciting reflection.'" But in the link to Madison's Report, the quoted phrase is non-existent. So, too, are the the most material words within that phrase non-existent. Am I missing something?

Here is the salient part of what Madison did write, which indicates that the states are indeed the final arbiters on such matters (not pundits, but judges and deciders):

"It appears to your committee to be a plain principle, founded in common sense, illustrated by common practice, and essential to the nature of compacts, that, where resort can be had to no tribunal superior to the authority of the parties, the parties themselves must be the rightful judges, in the last resort, whether the bargain made has been pursued or violated. The Constitution of the United States was formed by the sanction of the states, given by each in its sovereign capacity. It adds to the stability and dignity, as well as to the authority, of the Constitution, that it rests on this legitimate and solid foundation. The states, then, being the parties to the constitutional compact, and in their sovereign capacity, it follows of necessity that there can be no tribunal, above their authority, to decide, in the last resort, whether the compact made by them be violated; and consequently, that, as the parties to it, they must themselves decide, in the last resort, such questions as may be of sufficient magnitude to require their interposition.

It does not follow, however, because the states, as sovereign parties to their constitutional compact, must ultimately decide whether it has been violated, that such a decision ought to be interposed either in a hasty manner or on doubtful and inferior occasions. Even in the case of ordinary conventions between different nations, where, by the strict rule of interpretation, a breach of a part may be deemed a breach of the whole,–every part being deemed a condition of every other part, and of the whole,–it is always laid down that the breach must be both wilful and material, to justify an application of the rule. But in the case of an intimate and constitutional union, like that of the United States, it is evident that the interposition of the parties, in their sovereign capacity, can be called for by occasions only deeply and essentially affecting the vital principles of their political system.http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents…